Aiden didn't sleep.
Not fully.
His body complied—systems dimmed, posture still—but his mind never disconnected. It kept circling, precise and quiet, orbiting a single name.
Cassian Dantes.
By morning, the ONYX feed lit with three active events. All high-tier. None listed names, but every one was designed to attract power. Presence. Movement that wasn't accidental.
He chose two. Showed up. Waited.
Nothing.
At the second, a flicker—upper level, blurred through heat-glass and ambient light. Familiar silhouette. Same coat. Same stance.
He moved fast, quiet, efficient.
By the time he reached the platform, it was empty.
No exit trace. No surveillance anomaly. No misfire in the logs.
Just stillness.
He stood there longer than he intended—calculating, recalibrating, trying to make the moment give him something.
It didn't.
And that, somehow, was worse than a lockout. Worse than rejection.
He wasn't frustrated. He wasn't afraid.
He was starting to question whether he'd ever been close.
Not just to Cassian.
To whatever all of this was pointing toward.
The Golden Key hadn't triggered a response. Aria's Prestige Link had rewritten nothing. And Cassian—he appeared when it suited him, vanished without pattern, without residue.
It didn't follow.
Not a formula.
Not a structure.
Not even a resistance protocol.
Just movement. Just silence.
And Aiden—built on cause and effect, on sequence and intent—felt something slip beneath all of it.
Not collapse.
Disalignment.
A quiet dislocation in the logic that had always kept him sharp.
He checked the final event on his list.
He didn't know what outcome he expected.
Only that he would be there.
And if Cassian showed—
He wouldn't follow.
He'd cut straight through the signal.
The Meridien Ascension Panel
Location: Core Nexus – The Valmont Ascension Hall
Access: Meridien+ | All deeper levels classified
By the time Aiden reached the Core Nexus, Avalon's lighting had shifted into that sharp, liminal hour—when brilliance fractured into dusk and reflections bled gold across the chamber's mirrored floors.
Inside, the Ascension Panel was mid-session. A closed political forum—not an election, but something far more strategic. This was where future student council contenders stood trial, not before a crowd, but before the weight of Avalon's internal scrutiny. Each candidate had five minutes. No notes. No projections. Just voice, presence, and the ability to command a room built to swallow the unworthy.
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Valmont Series - Inheritance Code
Teen FictionWhat if your perfect life was just a rehearsal? On their twelfth birthday, Aria and Aiden Lancaster wake expecting luxury, freedom, and the future they were promised. Instead, they're given an ultimatum: Leave everything behind - their friends, thei...
